- Frenkie de Jong remains a FC Barcelona player all the time. The Catalan club has still not been able to get rid of the Dutch international
- Barcelona spent over 150 million euros on summer transfers, but it has a strong reluctance to pay contract money to de Jong, who agreed to defer payment during the pandemic
- Catalonia’s pride already owes de Jong several million euros. The club wanted to sell the player and at the same time persuade him to renounce the 10 million euro owed to him
- If they stay at Camp Nou until the end of the contract, Frenkie de Jong can get even EUR 100 million
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The De Jong case is one of the most visible examples of wage disputes in world sport. The clubs risk and offer their players lucrative contracts, hoping for a sporting and financial effect. If things don’t turn out as expected, they try to avoid obligations. Only in the 2020/21 season, the FIFA Dispute Settlement Chamber (DRC) received a record number of applications. 1187 complaints is an increase of a quarter, of which the vast majority of complaints were from players against clubs. In over 80 percent. DRC affairs found in favor of the player.
FC Barcelona vs Frenkie de Jong
The saga of crowding out Frenki de Jong divided public opinion. A strong voice on the matter was taken by Gary Neville, who admitted a few days ago that the footballer “should consider taking legal action against Barcelona, and all players should be behind him”. “A club spending fortunes on new players and not paying the full amount to those it has under the contract is immoral,” the former England international admitted on Twitter. It is one thing to force a footballer to fund a frenzy of extravagant shopping, but doing so while refusing to pay your full salary deserves criticism.
During the pandemic, de Jong signed a new contract. At the same time, to help Barcelona in a difficult time, he agreed to postpone about 17 million euros in salary. His basic salary of 14 million euros a year has been reduced to just 3 million euros in the 2020/21 season and 9 million in the following season. The deferred EUR 16 million was to be spread over the remaining four years of the contract, the club is to pay an additional EUR 1 million in the last year of the contract. In addition to deferred salaries, Barcelona is still obliged to pay the footballer a salary for the next four years and 15.6 million euros in loyalty bonuses. The package is EUR 88.6 million, but after adding the image rights bonuses and additional bonuses, the total cost of Barcelona’s obligations to the Dutchman should exceed EUR 100 million.
Barcelona, struggling with financial problems, wants to free de Jong from the contract at all costs and make money from it. Manchester United was very interested in acquiring a player and was ready to put in a total of 85 million euros, of which 75 would be paid in advance and the remaining 10 in bonuses. Before the transfer, the club should first come to an agreement with the player himself on deferred pay. The club’s initial offer sent to the player’s representatives was rejected. No wonder, the player would receive 10 million euros less than Barcelona owes him today. There was a stalemate, and club officials threatened that de Jong’s contract would be reduced. This shows a trend that is dangerous for players and is becoming more and more common.
Pandemic as a pretext for clubs
The pandemic was a great excuse for clubs to bypass the terms of signed contracts. The vast majority of cases that went to FIFA concerned a team from the lower leagues, as well as from the highest divisions, among others from Israel, Luxembourg, Libya, Nigeria, but also from Portugal and Turkey. Earlier this year, Emmanuel Adebayor won his case, suing Paraguay’s Olympia. The case of such a large company as FC Barcelona is rare. According to sports lawyers, there are ways for de Jong to go to Manchester United while still being able to receive deferred payments from the Catalan Duma. The question is whether Barcelona, which spent over EUR 150 million on summer transfers, can afford to pay off all its liabilities.
The new club of Robert Lewandowski has launched many economic levers to balance its budget. The authorities of the Catalan club put everything on one card and sold some rights to some of the profits that will be expected in the future. The Camp Nou authorities used not very moral methods, but those that worked in other leagues.
In the NFL, quarterback Baker Mayfield had to come to terms with a loss of $ 3.5 million to move from the Cleveland Browns to the Carolina Panthers. If he insisted on staying with his team and fighting for the full amount, he would probably sit the season on the bench, so that his earning potential after 12 months without playing would be much lower and the player would ultimately lose much more.
Player contracts are more protected in the English Premier League than in LaLiga. “A club should not bring anyone else in if it already has obligations to a player with whom it has already signed a contract and to whom it has to pay,” said Simon Baker of the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA). During the pandemic, players from 19 English clubs (including Aston Villa and West Ham, among others) agreed to a wage deferral, but PFA lawyers made sure that all clubs and players’ agreements would guarantee the latter a full refund. Often players will admit that they have decided to play for England because they have a guarantee that their contract will be honored. This is important for the players and for the clubs themselves, as they have a greater ability to attract talent. The stability of the contract is very important.
Situations in which a footballer voluntarily agrees to waive some of the funds are rare. The exception that proved the rule was Willian, who decided to resign from the remaining two years of his contract at Arsenal and move to the Corinthians. As a result, the player lost around £ 20.5m.
The saga involving Frenki de Jong cast quite a shadow over FC Barcelona. Regardless of the final outcome, the motto of the Catalan Duma “Mes Que Un Club” (“More than a club”) is no longer so convincing.
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His eyesight deteriorated day by day. First in one eye. Activities in the hall, a ball hit in the face and Michał Globisz was in the hospital. Later, visibility in the other eye faded. Nevertheless, the deserved youth coach and educator can still be found in the stands of the stadium in Gdynia – he comes to matches and his friends tell him what is happening on the pitch. In “X-ray”, the guardian of gold medalists of the European Championships from years ago talks about learning a new life and setting the head at such an angle that the number of an oncoming trolleybus can be seen at the stop.
Source:own work / Onet
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